OSAKA (Nikkei)--In an effort to create more innovative and attractive products, Nintendo will combine the development segments for its home video game consoles and handheld game devices, The Nikkei learned Tuesday.

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Long term planning? Or knee jerk reaction to WiiU sales? (Old news...nothing new)

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Edit:

Inside Games reports the new umbrella division brings Nintendo’s portable and home console hardware development teams under one organisational structure for the first time, according to auto-translate and NeoGaf users.

Nintendo apparently hopes to optimise hardware development by sharing expertise and skills across the formerly divided teams, accelerate development of online connectivity of hardware, and promote interconnection between disparate systems.

The new division is expected to increase Nintendo’s chances of producing “revolutionary” new hardware; think of 3DS units hooking up the Wii U as a matter of course, or Wii U tablets which work as portable consoles in their own rights, and you’re probably on track for what it has in mind for the future.

Estimates put the Integrated Development Division’s staff at about 1,200, housed in one new building at its Kyoto site.

Nintendo’s last significant restructure was the dissolution of the R&D1 and R&D2 teams into Nintendo EAD and Nintendo SPD. CEO and president Satoru Iwata outlined proposed further changes to Nintendo’s research and development structure in October 2012.

The rise of the mobile threat. The dwarfed improvements of home console graphical capabilities in the coming gens (already started). The growing similarities between the portable and home console products. (3DS closer to Wii than DS was close to Cube, Wii U closer to 3DS than Cube was to DS). Cost saving in streamlining and consolidating the efforts under one roof. The threat of bombing initiatives as project prices soar. A failed project could be lethal.

Leading to a new strategy of a single console for home and mobile purposes.

This is not a company that is short on funds, so I can't see the rush to announce something like this pre-earnings announcement. Maybe they will jam some charges into this quarter which is likely to disappoint when fiscal '13 gets revised lower on unit sales.

Nintendo's revising their R&D, and software development strategy in the next few years, including the building of new facilities in Kyoto. This is a part of that, and has probably been in the works for a while.

OSAKA (Nikkei)--In an effort to create more innovative and attractive products, Nintendo will combine the development segments for its home video game consoles and handheld game devices, The Nikkei learned Tuesday.

Long term planning? Or knee jerk reaction to WiiU sales?

It's impossible to know what Nintendo's intentions truly are with this. Will they be phasing out either the handheld or the home-console, or, will they simply be creating two devices that work seamlessly together?

I think a dedicated handheld device that ties into a home-console would be cool. But if that's the case...why not just make 1 system instead of 2?